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THE ALABAMA HISTORICAL SOCIETY 
MLONXGOJVIERY 

Reprint No. 15 



RECOLLECTIONS 



OF THE 



Alabama Democratic State 
Convention of i860 



BY 



SUTTON S. SCOTT 



[From the TRANSACTIONS 1899.190J, Vol. IV] 



MONTGOMERY, ALABAMA 
190+ 



VIII. RECOLLECTIONS OF THE ALABAMA DEMO- 
CRATIC STATE CONVENTION OF 1860.^ 

By Sutton S. Scott/ Auburn, Ala. 

The Alabama Democratic State Convention met in the hall of 
the house of representatives at Montgomery, January 11, i860. 
The city was full of visitors from every section of the State. Long 
before four o'clock in the afternoon, the time set for the meeting 
of the convention, a large and continuous stream of people was 
moving along Dexter avenue in the direction of the capitol. 
There were no noisy demonstrations. All shouts and laughter 
were hushed. A grim sort of quietude and determination were 
the ruling spirits of the hour. The very atmosphere seemed op- 

'■ Having been asked to give the public my recollections of the Alabama 
Democratic State Convention of i860, I now endeavor to comply with 
that request, although I fear, as I have no ready access to papers relat- 
ing to that convention, nothing, in short, to refresh my mind on the 
subject, I may now and then be guilty of inaccuracies, none of which, 
however, I am sure, will be vital or important. Mr. Owen has supplied 
the following title of the published record of the Convention : 

Proceedings | of the | Democratic State Convention, | held in the I 
city of Montgomery, | commencing ] Wednesday, January 11, i860. | 
Montgomery : | Advertiser book and job steam press print. 1 i860. | 8 
vo. pp. 38. 

'^ Sutton S. Scott, author and legislator, is a native of Madison county, 
Ala., where he was bom Nov. 26, 1829. He is the son of James Greene 
and Ann (Biddle) Scott, the grandson of John Scott, and the great-grand- 
son of John Scott, a vScotch emigrant to Virginia. The home of the first 
John Scott was called "Old London." and was in Dinwiddie county, Va., 
near the Brunswick county line. The Scotts were well-to-do planters 
and slave owners, and were related to the Darvells and Thompsons, of 
Virginia. James Greene Scott was born in Virginia, Nov., 1799, and when 
but little over nineteen years of age, he left his home and migrated to 
Madison county, Ala. His education was imperfect being such as could 
he obtained in pioneer times, but he was able to make the most of it, as 
he was a man of quick and vigorous mind. He was, in fact, what might 
be termed a sort of mechanical genius, for while he never served an ap- 
prenticeship at a trade, he could do almost any kind of work in wood 
from the making of a bureau or carriage, to the building of a house. 
He married Ann Biddle (from North Cai-olina) in Huntsville, and there 
they both lived and died. She was a Methodist, but he was a Baptist, 
uniting with the church late in life. Sutton S. Scott was graduated from 
the University of Tenn., Knoxville, in the class of 1850, with the degree 
of Bachelor of Arts. Having read law he began the practice in Huntsville. 
In 1857 he was elected to the house of representatives from Madison 
county, and re-elected in 1859. He was consequently a member of the 

21 (313) 



314 Alabama Historical Society. 

pressed with the weight and burden of issues, the result of which 
could not be otherwise than far-reaching and enduring. 

As the rotunda and hall at the capitol were being gradually 
filled, the men would gather in little groups, seemingly engaged 
in deep and anxious consultation. Two of these groups deserve 
especial notice. One was made up of the Secessionists, and the 
other of Unionists, as they were then generally, and rather loosely 
designated. All of both groups were delegates, or, claimed to be 
such, with perhaps one or two exceptions. In one of these 
groups were John Anthony Winston, — the whilom "veto-gover- 
nor of Alabama," — loved by some and feared by many, — 3. man 
whose intellect was as sharp, and whose disposition was as highly 
tempered as the Damascus blade of Saladin, joined with a tongue 
and vocabulary able and ready to give full expression to both ; 
Henry W. Hilliard, ex-member of congress and ex-minister to 
Belgium, — whose speeches on the hustings and from the rostrum 
were as smooth and sparkling in their easy flow as the essays of 
Oliver Goldsmith or the sketches of Washington Irving; J. J. 
Seibels, another ex-Minister to Belgium, and editor of the Mont- 
gomery Confederation, — a man massive in body and mind, whose 
boldness and aggressiveness were tempered by great caution and 
conservatism ; and Nicholas Davis, of Madison, genial, jolly, elo- 

extra session, which convened in 1861, just about the time of the seces- 
sion of Alabama from the Union. He was a member of the committee, 
with E. C. Bullock, John T. Morgan, Thomas H. Watts, John D. Phelan, 
James H. Clanton, A. B. Meek and others appointed by the governor to 
meet Jefferson Davis, the president elect of the Provisional Government 
of the Confederate States, at West Point. Ga., and escort him to Mont- 
gomery. From the position of an assistant. Mr. Scott was promoted, 
Feb. 26, 1863, to the responsible post of commissioner of Indian affairs, 
C. S. A., to succeed David Hubbard. He labored diligently in this posi- 
tion until the close of hostilities. After the war Mr. Scott removed to 
Russell county, where he became a planter. He represented this county 
in the Alabama constitutional convention of 1875, and also in the House 
of Representatives, 1884-85, and 1890-91. He was appointed, during Presi- 
dent Cleveland's first term, a commissioner to settle depredation claims 
against the United States government in New Mexico, and during Mr. 
Cleveland's second term was chairman of the commission to arrange the 
land troubles with the Ute Indians upon their reserv-ations in Utah. He 
was married Nov. 10, 1864, at Columbus, Ga., to Loula M., daughter of 
William Hurt, a planter of Russell county. Ala., and granddaughter of 
William Hurt, of N. C, a soldier in the Revolution. While Mr. Scott has 
had an active business and political career he is essentially a student, a 
man of fine literary acumen and of historical tastes. He is the author of 
Southbookc (1880), The Mobilians, or Talks About the South (1898), 
as well as a large number of short articles in the papers and magazines 
of the day. He now resides at Auburn. — Editor. 



Alabama Democratic Convention. — Scott. 315 

quent, and free-hearted, — whose faults were of such a nature 
that, in spite of them, he was much loved by a large part of the 
young men of North Alabama. The central figure of the other 
group was LeRoy Pope Walker, afterwards Confederate States 
secretary of war, one of the most highly cultured men of the 
South, and one of the courtliest: — around him stood Thomas H. 
Watts, afterward Confederate attorney general and governor 
of Alabama, a favorite at the bar and in society, — one who 
thought it worthier to give than to receive, — who took a positive 
delight in serving his friends, never hesitating even when it was 
against his own interests ; Francis S. Lyon, quiet and modest, 
whose genius for doing work, and making no enemies, was the 
wonder of contemporaries; Thomas H. Herndon, afterwards a 
Democratic candidate for governor of the State, and at the time 
of his death, March 28, 1883, member of congress from the Mo- 
bile district, — a gentleman endowed by birth and training with all 
those high-toned and knightly virtues characterizing the old-time 
Southern planters of the Alabama canebrake ; Edward C. Bullock, 
the brilliant publicist, whose reputation for intellectual solidity, 
richly deserved though it was, had been made to suffer by the 
exuberance of his wit, who could no more resist the inclination 
in season and out of season, of perpetrating a witticism, than the 
opium-eater could forego his daily cup of poison, — who indeed, 
in a game of repartee, never failed to call his opponent's hand, 
and always with success ; and Edrriund S. Dargan, ex-chief jus- 
tice of the supreme court of Alabama, a slow talker and a slow 
thinker, but sure in both respects, — a man whose fine mind was so 
constantly engaged in untangling legal complexities that he could 
seldom find time to brush his hair or tie his shoes. 

Before three o'clock most of the members were in their seats, 
and every available space in the vast hall was packed with spec- 
tators, wearing generally interested and anxious faces. The 
crowd in the galleries was largely made up of women — the fair- 
est of Southern beauties — whose presence relieved to some extent 
the solemn, I might even say, the sombre gravity of the occasion, 
as they looked down with bright, flashing eyes, and cheeks all 
aglow with life and excitement, upon the most prominent men 
in the State, standing, or sitting, or moving restlessly about the 
floor of the hall. 



2i6 Alabama Historical Society. 

Seated by the main aisle, and nearly in front of the speaker's 
desk, was the distinguished leader of the so-called secession wing 
of the Alabama Democracy— the Hyperides of the South— Wil- 
liam Lowndes Yancey. 

This is not the place for a fair analysis of the character of 
that remarkable man. Justice could not be done to it without 
going more into detail than this paper will allow. In speaking, 
however, of a convention, in which he was the most conspicuous 
figure, — a convention, every act of which was in harmony with 
his teachings, — I cannot refrain from making some comments 
upon what was regarded by his enemies as a weak point in his 
moral armor — uncompromising ultraism. as they were pleased 
significantly to term it. This they must have considered the only 
weak point in his moral harness, for against it all their anti- 
Yancey shafts were persistently directed. It, however, when 
studied in the light of his public acts and utterances during the 
whole of his political life, will be thought perhaps by reasonable 
men one of his strongest claims to the respect and gratitude of his 
people. Let us look at it a little : for it is readily admitted that in 
one respect, at least, Yancey was an extremist of the most pro- 
nounced type ; — I mean in the strictness and intensity of his de- 
votion to the rights of the Southern States under the Constitu- 
tion. With regard to these he was indeed uncompromising. 

When a schoolboy I heard Andrew Johnson, at Knoxville, 
Tennessee, in his canvass for governor of that State, say that "a 
thing was right, or it was wrong; and with regard to it there 
could properly be no compromise." The sentiment was vigorously 
applauded by the Democrats around, because it tended to sup- 
port some political position advocated by the speaker and his 
party. William H. Seward, a Republican extremist, as Johnson, 
at the time suggested, was a Democratic extremist, subsequently 
said something to the same effect and for a like purpose. He 
pronounced "all compromises radically wrong and essentially 
vicious." 

Yancey, with all his alleged ultraism, never entertained such 
a sentiment as that avowed by Johnson and Seward. He was no 
mere politician. He was too honest and sincere; too calm and 
clear-headed ; in short, too broadly and serenely wise, to endorse 
and seek to maintain, for the accomplishment of political ends, 



Alabama Democratic Convention. — Scott. 317 

so pernicious and destructive a proposition. He knew that in 
compromise was frequently to be found the very essence of truth ; 
that in all bitter factional contests right was generally located at 
some point between the extremes engaged in the strife, and, in 
such cases, could be reached by compromise, and by compromise 
alone. But as to a constitutional requirement involving the rights 
of the States — especially the States of the South, his home-section 
and at the same time the weaker section — the question of com- 
promise never entered into his calculation at all. He stood as 
firm as a rock in demanding the fulfillment of every constitutional 
guaranty, and the discharge of every constitutional obligation. 
He was the same unflinching and uncompromising advocate and 
defender of the rights of the States under the Confederate con- 
stitution that he was under the Federal constitution. In fact, 
so immovable was his faith in these rights and so utter his devo- 
tion to them, that he was not accustomed to ask himself, if they 
had not been modified by a change of circumstances, and conse- 
quently did not require in the treatment a change of front — if, in 
other words, "the expedient," to which he had such aversion in 
that connection, had not risen to the dignity of a "necessity." 
The truth of these hurried and imperfect suggestions is evident 
from his celebrated controversy with Ben Hill in the Confederate 
senate. Yancey's position in the argument, based upon the great 
fundamental idea of his political creed — the indestructible rights 
of the State — made no allowance whatever for the strained and 
critical conditions existing at the time. It seemed difficult, almost 
impossible, for him in fact, to realize that the question then to be 
considered, was, not whether the legislation asked by the govern- 
ment, through Hill, was in accord with the demands of State 
rights, but whether it was in accord with the demands of the situ- 
ation — not whether it promised most for the preservation of local 
self-government, but whether, without serious and lasting injury 
to constitutional freedom, it promised most for the preservation 
of the Confederacy. 

Yancey, it should be added here, was frequently charged by his 
enemies with being a disunionist per se. It was an unjust charge. 
He was no such disunionist; on the contrary, he had a gallant 
and knightly love for the Union; but the Union of his affection 
was the Union handed down by the fathers of the Republic — a 



3ri8 Alabama Historical Society. 

Union blessed and glorified by an unbroken and unviolated con- 
stitution. The closing words, indeed, with a slight verbal altera- 
tion of Webster's eloquent and impassioned appeal for Union, in 
his great speech against Hayne before the United States senate, 
may not inappropriately be given as the motto, or guide of Yancey 
at every stage of his political career — the constitution and the 
Union — now and forever — one and inseparable. 

The epithet "grand" is often used to describe remarkable men ; 
but it was never used in this way more appropriately than when 
applied to Yancey. He had his faults : he made mistakes. These 
mainly resulted from the fact, as Goldsmith says of Edmund 
Burke, he often "gave up to party what was meant for mankind." 
But, in the face of these failings, he can confidently be pronounced 
a grand man ! grand in his sincerity and love of truth ; grand in 
his eloquence, ability and integrity ; grand in his devotion to the 
rights of the States, and to constitutional liberty ; and grand in 
the courage with which he defended his honest convictions, like 
Ivanhoe in the lists at Ashby, not only against each adversary, 
but against them all combined. 

But let us come back to the convention. The hands of the 
clock on the wall behind the speaker's stand, pointed to about 
twenty minutes of four when Yancey slowly rose from his seat 
near the middle of the hall. The convention, as before intimated, 
was to begin its session exactly at four. 

I pause here to remark that, having been admitted behind the 
scenes of secession management, I knew what steps it proposed 
to take in perfecting the organization of the convention. Henry 
D. Smith, of Lauderdale, had been settled on for temporary chair- 
man and I think, Francis S. Lyon, of Marengo, for permanent 
president. Some reason existed for management on the part of 
the secessionists, for although delegations favorable to their views 
had been selected from almost every county in the State, there 
was a minority of Union members from certain counties, and con- 
testing delegations from the great counties of INIobile and Mont- 
gomery. Some of these Unionists, too, were men of decided 
ability and prominence. Among the minority suggested, were 
such members as John Anthony Winston, A. K. Shepard, and 
Nicholas Davis, while the contesting delegations were headed by 
John Forsyth, Alexander B. Meek, and Percy Walker, from Mo- 



Alabama Democratic Convention. — Scott. 319 

bile, and Henry W. Hilliard, J. J. Seibels, T. B. Bethea, and 
Henry C. Semple, from Montgomery. 

Yancey stood up amid a sea of animated and expectant faces. 
The buzz of voices suddenly ceased. He commenced talking 
slowly and deliberately, v^ith that clear and musical intonation 
which had so frequently charmed into silence hostile assemblies, 
and which was now heard with delight by hosts of friends, and 
with no interruption from those who disagreed with him. His 
magical tones, even when most suppressed in utterance, reached 
and filled every ear in the vast hall. He spoke of the condition of 
the country, and the duty of the Democratic party in the pending 
crisis. As the hands slowly traveled around the face of the clock, 
his stream of talk flowed freely on, now rising, now falling, but 
gaining each second in volume, in rapidity, in animation. The 
hands were about to point to four, when, after a pause, he said: 
"I move, gentlemen." — Just then Nicholas Davis sprang from his 
seat on the northern side of the hall and shouted : "I move." — 
Both motions were put at the same time, one that Henry D. Smith, 
of Lauderdale, and the other that Michael J. Bulger, of Tallapoosa, 
be made temporary chairman of the convention. The two gentle- 
men named rushed for the stand from different parts of the hall, 
and passing up the steps on either side, met at the Speaker's 
chair, into which Mr. Bulger glided with astonishing promptness, 
while Mr. Smith seized with equal promptness the gavel, or em- 
blem of authority, and began rapping for order. But there was 
no order. Apparently every man was at once on his feet, stamp- 
ing, gesticulating, screaming. The roar of indignation raised by 
the secessionists, who knew that they were overwhelmingly en- 
titled to the organization of the convention, joined with the thun- 
derous manifestation of excitement on the part of the others pres- 
ent, was simply deafening. It seemed sufficient to raise the heavy 
roof of the huge building, and bring it down in ruins upon the 
heads of the vast assemblage. In the midst of the terrific hubbub, 
Alexander B. Clitherall, of Pickens, mounted a desk close to my 
standing-place, in the southwestern corner of the hall, so that I 
caught a few words of his earnest appeal to the delegates for or- 
der. He besought them to remember that there were enemies, 
open and secret to the Democratic party in the gallery and lobby 
who were enjoying the confusion and evidences of disruption in 



320 Alabama Historical Society. 

the party, and that on this account, if for no other reason, the 
disorder should cease, and cease at once. It would have been as 
well for him to have talked peace to the ocean when stirred up 
from its bottom by tempests. But few heard him ; none heeded 
him; and after talking himself hoarse, he gave up the effort 
in despair. At length, when exhaustion had brought about a 
slight lull in the storm. General L. P. Walker stood up in a chair 
and waving his hand with that ease and grace characteristic of the 
man, and with voice and expression of all smoothness and suavity, 
said: "Inasmuch as the motions to the temporary chairmanship 
were simultaneous, and as the convention, itself, has given no 
certain indication of the choice of either gentlemen occupying the 
stand for the office, I move that they vacate the place, and that 
the Hon. Francis S. Lyon be made the temporary chairman of this 
convention." The motion was received with tremendous applause 
and the ayes for its adoption were apparently unanimous. Fran- 
cis S. Lyon took the chair; and the secessionists had control of 
the convention. The temporary organization was made perma- 
nent. John Erwin, a noted secession lawyer and planter from 
the canebrake country, was put at the head of the committee on 
resolutions ; and John T, Morgan, whom I, in common with most 
other persons present, now saw for the first time, was appointed 
chairman of the committee on credentials. These were perhaps 
the two most important committees of the convention. Morgan, 
though doing perhaps his first heavy political work in the State, 
had to defend the report of his committee with regard to the con- 
testing delegations from Mobile and Montgomer}-, against For- 
syth, A. B, Meek, Percy Walker, Hilliard and other political de- 
baters of eminence. He did it in speeches, which for brilliancy 
and force and dash, were seldom equalled. They stamped him as 
one of the coming men of the South and the country. 

The other notable operations of this convention, with all their 
widespread and momentous results, are known to every well-read 
schoolboy at the South ; — for are they not written in the book of 
the chronicles of the Confederacy? 



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